Week 7

Question 1

what is process tracing?

Answer 1

APPROACH to making CAUSAL INFERENCES. ANALYZING a case and TRACING each STEP to see how it LED to the OUTCOME (like solving a mystery)

Question 2

how is process tracing different from history research?

Answer 2

views historical events as CASES of more abstract SOCIAL SCIENTIFIC CONCEPTS rather than their own event in their particular context (all part of the bigger picture)
the GOAL is to DEVELOP or TEST THEORIES that travel outside particular cases

Question 3

when should you use process tracing?

Answer 3

used for IN-DEPTH CASE STUDIES (focused on 1-2 cases)

Question 4

what type of evidence is used in process tracing?

Answer 4

all kinds, but most common to use PRIMARY SOURCE HISTORICAL EVENTS (ex. archives, sometimes firsthand account interviews)

Question 5

what are the 4 things process tracing requires researchers to pay close attention to?

Answer 5

TIMING: WHEN events occurred and in WHAT ORDER (if an event happened after something, it couldn’t have caused it)

SEQUENCING: causes often come through a SPECIFIC SEQUENCE of events, rather than just one (if order was different it may not have happened)

PACING: how QUICKLY changes happen

RECONCEPTUALIZING CASES: RE-EXAMINING cases over time

Question 6

what are the 4 “tests” process tracing researchers discuss?

Answer 6

STRAW-IN-THE-WIND: see wind direction by holding up a piece of straw-weakest evidence, if something passes it is something you should consider as an explanation, but it is not enough to sufficiently explain an outcome

HOOP TEST: making a hypothesis jump through a hoop-if hypo. is right, it can’t fail a hoop test. if it does, you can rule it out (necessary to pass to conclude a theory applies in a case)

SMOKING GUN: best evidence in murder is seeing someone holding a smoking gun-if the hypothesis passes the test it def. holds (sufficient evidence that a theory applies to case)

DOUBLY-DECISIVE: if the hypo. passes the test, it serves as smoking gun and rules out all other possible explanations

Question 7

what are 4 critiques of process tracing?

Answer 7

FEW CASES: researchers only rely on a few cases to draw conclusions (or even 1)
INFINITE REGRESS: when tracking back in time, you can always go further back, technically everything is caused by something in the past (researchers make their own decision when to stop tracking)
OMITTED VARIABLES: requires inferential leaps about what led.to outcomes without having all possible information (impossible)
INTERPRETATION: subjective process-researchers write their own interpretations of cases, other researchers may come to different conclusions